I don’t think many people imagined that Bob Odenkirk would make a very good action movie star, but here we are in the middle of 2026 and yet again Odenkirk proves himself to be a competent action hero in his latest role in Ben Wheatley’s “Normal.” This is an action movie on par with the likes of “Nobody” and “John Wick,” probably because it was written by the same man, Derek Kolstad. It’s a wild ride through a small Minnesotan town all the way through its 90-minute run time. Let’s take a closer look at this new action flick.
Yeah, that’s all I got this week. I can’t have winning nut-grafs all the time.
Now on to the meat of this production. What’s the story? Well, a policeman named Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) is made the temporary sheriff of a little Minnesotan town called Normal after the town’s sheriff died under strange circumstances. Everyone in the town is, well, normal on the surface until the town bank is robbed by a pair of drifters and we learn that the entire town has been a front for a Yakuza cache operation. The robbers, Lori and Keith (Lena Headey and Brendan Fletcher), team up with Ulysses and the daughter of the former sheriff, Alex (Jess McLeod), to fend off the attacking denizens of Normal and escape before the Yakuza arrive to protect their assets.
It’s a pretty solid flick. Great action and cinematography as usual from this team. I would even go so far as to say most if not all the films that have come out from these people have been solid! “Bullet Train,” “Nobody,” “Nobody 2,” “Violent Night” and now “Normal,” they’re solid if not rather formulaic action films. Though that is the one thing I have to criticize about this film— it repeats a lot of the same kinds of tropes we’ve seen in these previous action movies. A normal guy turns badass, some mob is involved, the good guy blows up the money, good guys are the only ones left, etc. At the same time the film flips those on their head with the good guys actually trying to fix the damage, dupe the mobsters and not blow up the money. In the end one of the bad guys turns good and has a relatively happy ending. It’s certainly a breath of fresh air, but of course it’s not enough to be able to claim that it’s “reinventing the genre.” I doubt anything within the next decade will be able to do that.
Now, a lot of people can probably look at that critical eye mixed with high-praise and think that this movie is nothing more than another “John Wick” clone, coasting off the success of its format and the format of its earlier peers. We’re all tuning in for a big schlock-fest of the usual junk we can get for free on Amazon.
But really? That’s perfectly okay. “John Wick” was an entertaining series with a fun and engaging format. Nobody can blame these folks for sticking with what works. It’s all they really need to do in the end. And all these movies need to do is keep us entertained.
